In a report on MSN, Apple earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google last year. As most of its plants are located over seas this shouldn't be a surprise. However what was a surprise is the apparent brashness of a Apple executives response when asked if they could bring some of that manufacturing back to the United States where Apple originated from. He was quoted as saying, “We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” The Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

The report also detailed an alleged conversation between Steve Jobs and President Barack Obama during a benefit dinner. All of the Silicon Valley’s top luminaries asked a question of the U.S. President. When it was Steve Jobs turn President Obama interrupted Mr. Jobs and asked, "What would it take to make iPhones in the United States?" and Mr. Jobs replied bluntly, "Those jobs aren’t coming back." Now without knowing the entire context of the conversation it would be easy to vilify Mr. Jobs or even the Apple corporation. However what can be said with absolute certainty is Apple computers at one time were in fact made in America and now no longer are. Be it cheap labor or factories with more flexibility, Mr. Jobs helped create a company with a $400,000 dollar profit margin per employee and those jobs are not coming back to the U.S. any time soon.

maybe its because of how ridiculously overpriced Apple products are, and then the common individual will get a massive boner over how the product looks and buy it instantly. Mainly because of the shiney Apple emblem.

Criminalize them all you want but they are correct. It is not their obligation to solve America's problems. We passed laws, raised taxes, and did everything possible to make business here harder. Why should business come back?

It is the same problem happening in California. We lost tons of businesses years ago to Arizona when Davis did his tax crusade against them. Now we can't get them back and I don't blame them. This is why I side with Amazon in keeping it tax free here. California politicians bankrupted the state and their own solution is to continue doing what got them in the mess.

People need to learn the hard way what happens when you vote the wrong people into office. Just like they need to learn the hard way what happens when all your products come from slave labor.

maybe its because of how ridiculously overpriced Apple products are, and then the common individual will get a massive boner over how the product looks and buy it instantly. Mainly because of the shiney Apple emblem.

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No, mainly because of the shininess of the product itself.

I didn't buy my iPhone 4 because of the Apple logo; in fact, that was a gravitas point against.

When other companies manage to make products that are as pretty and yes, as functional, whether through jailbreaking or not, they will also make such profits.

I honestly don't know why all other companies can't make something as pretty as an Apple product.

Apple has 60,000 employees. Foxconn has 1,000,000. Let's say foxconn has 500,000 people making apple products. Let's give them raises (you can tell I'm not an MBA) so that those 500,000 people make $25,000 a year (no benies). That would be a $12.5B cost to apple per year. Apple makes $25B in profit in a year, and made $13B last quarter. More than enough to pay workers normal salaries.

That's nothing, Costco makes nearly 1 million (966,467) per employee. Sure apple is bigger and thus makes more money overall but on a per employee basis, warehouse is beating tech giant by a 2.5:1 ratio.